International(Came to America 9-11 years back but not permanent resident yet)
State/Location of residency: CA
Type of high school (current college for transfers): Competitive High School(T20 in CA)
Gender/Race/Ethnicity (optional): Indian Male
Other special factors (first generation to college, legacy, athlete, etc.): None
Intended Major(s) Mechanical Engineering
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.548
Weighted HS GPA (incl. weighting system): 3.77(+1 for Honors and AP)
UC Weighted/Capped: 4.11 (UC weighted capped is only 10th and 11th grade with weighting)
College GPA (for transfers): N/A
Class Rank: Not calculated by school
ACT/SAT Scores: 34/1500
Coursework
APs already taken:
AP Physics 1: 4
AP Computer Science A: 4
AP Calculus BC: 4
AP Calculus BC(AB subscore): 5
AP Chemistry: 5
APs currently taking:
AP Statistics, AP Physics C Mechanics(Semester 1), AP Physics C Electricity and Magnetism(Semester 2), AP Macroeconomics(Semester 1), AP US Government and Politics(Semester 2)
Awards
AP Scholar with Honor
National Merit Commended Student
Eagle Scout
National Science Olympiad Medalist
State Champion for Science Olympiad
Far West Regional Tournament Qualifier
Extracurriculars
Treasurer of Science Olympiad Club(10th grade)
Captain of top Science Olympiad Team in the club for 2 years(11th and 12th)
Boy Scouts(7 years)
Elected Senior Patrol Leader for 1 term(Highest leadership position in my troop of 93 scouts)
OA Member
Club Soccer(10 years)
School Soccer(4 years in high school 2 years in middle school)(Qualified for CCS Playoffs and went to semifinals)
Did a project for animals with a certain disease which got lots of public attention. (Sry can’t give many details)
Essays/LORs/Other
Lit Teacher LOR: 5/10 Not that close with my lit teacher but got good grades in the class and had good essays and speeches.
AP Chem Teacher LOR: 7-8/10 Had a good relationship with my chem teacher. I am TAing for her right now(senior year).
Scoutmaster(Adult leader of Troop): 10/10 My scoutmaster has known me for 7 years and has seen me grow as a leader.
Personal Essay: 8/10 About engineering a solution for the animal project I mentioned in my ECs. The project was a pretty significant leadership experience where I led 20 volunteers and had a project of 210 hours. Cost Constraints / Budget
No constraints. My parents have been saving up for this for a bit of time. Would prefer not to pay 70k per year for college but if it is a good college then it is justifiable.
Schools
Safety:
UC Riverside
Purdue University(EA)
Texas A&M
UC Merced
Cal Poly Pomona
Arizona State University(Rolling Admission and already applied)
Penn State(EA)
Santa Clara University(EA)
Virginia Tech
University of Colorado Boulder
Match
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
UC Davis
Cal Poly SLO
UT Austin
UWash
Boston University
USC
UC Santa Cruz
Reach
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Georgia Tech(EA)
Cornell University
Rice University
Stanford University
MIT
Yale
Brown
UIUC
I know that I am shotgunning to a whole bunch of colleges but would like some honest opinions about my chances and any suggestions are welcome. I am applying for Mechanical Engineering with Aerospace Engineering being my second choice.
Also, I have an upward grade trend:
Freshman Semester 1: 3.5
Freshman Semester 2: 3 (had to get surgery for appendicitis a couple of days before finals and completely failed them)
Sophomore Semester 1: 3.429
Sophomore Semester 2: Credit/No Credit due to Covid(got credit for all of my classes)
Junior Semester 1: 4
Junior Semester 2: 3.833 (B in Spanish 3)
APs/Honors in Sophomore: Precalc Honors, AP Physics 1, AP Computer Science A
APs/Honors in Junior: AP Chemistry, AP Calculus BC
I am expecting 1 B in my Senior Year Semester 1(AP Physics C is the worst!!!)
Senior Year Course Load: Woodworking, TA(AP Chem), Mythology/Folklore, AP Macroecon, AP Physics C, AP Stats.
Are you at a special HS - like a private or one that sends many to top 20 schools?
Otherwise, while Im not sure of the rules for international but in general a 3.5 UW and 34 ACT - you won’t get into any on your reach list. Nor BU or USC.
Just not sure how the international student thing works and I don’t want to predict UCs.
If you are applying to Penn State, you might look at Pitt. Same with ASU and U of A.
I encourage you to cull your list, it is too long and too reachy. The non-UC schools you have listed as reaches are likely out of reach with a uw3.5 GPA, regardless of your ECs. Schools that you have listed as matches that are reaches include BU, UTA, USC, UWash. Pick 3 or so reaches, and be done.
Purdue, TAMU, PSU, SCU, VT are not safeties. Not sure I would call Boulder a safety either for ME…make sure to make their EA deadline. Did you get your TAMU app in by the priority deadline of Oct 15? If not, I would drop that school. VT’s EA deadline is Dec 1, make that one too, if VT stays on the list.
ASU was a good choice, if you get accepted, I would only apply to schools that you would attend over ASU. You might add U Arizona, which would be a highly likely admit. Good luck.
Nine of the schools are UCs which is one application. CPP and SLO are one application (which doesn’t require essays) as well. ASU is already submitted but that still leaves 18 hefty applications.
OP, is your essay about your Eagle project? This is a personal statement so make sure it is about who you are/what you learned and not a list of what you did.
Cal Poly SLO uses 9-11th grades in their GPA calculation so your Freshman grades will hurt your chances. Use the Rogerhub UC GPA calculator, add Freshman a-g course grades with the 8 semester Honors point cap = SLO GPA.
Based on the overall admit rates and since Engineering is so competitive for the UC’s and CSU’s, I would make some changes to the list.
SLO: Reach
UCSD/UCI and UCSB: Low Reach/High Match
USC: Reach
2020 Freshman admit rates for UC GPA of 3.80-4.19 capped weighted and not major specific so competitive majors like Engineering will have lower admit rates:
UCB: 14%
UCLA: 8%
UCSD: 39%
UCSB: 40%
UCD: 55%
UCI: 38%
UCSC: 82%
UCR: 90%
UCM: 97%
Best of luck and you really only need 2 safety schools on your list as long as you are willing to attend.
I generally agree with other answers. Your list is too long. Assuming a fairly normal competitive suburban US high school with a 3.5 unweighted GPA I think that your entire list of reaches are all out of reach. I would not bother applying to any of them. I think that UT Austin and the University of Washington are reaches out of state, as are some of the other schools that you have listed under “Match”.
You might want to first make sure that you really do have safeties. Santa Clara, ASU, and UC Merced might be schools to look at closely and make sure that you are really going to get into them. Unfortunately I am not sufficiently familiar with most schools out west to be sure (my guess is yes but it is only a guess).
If these three schools really are safeties, then other than dropping the entire list of “reaches” I think that you have a reasonable list.
Are you expecting to get your permanent resident visa at any time in the reasonable future? This might both improve your chances for admissions and also make some of the in-state universities a lot more affordable.
I agree with the others. USC has a very low acceptance rate for Viterbi. Definitely a reach. And UT Austin and UW (being oos) is definitely a reach as well. I would even say UC San Diego will be tough for engineering.
Your GPA (plus being an ORM) will likely keep you out of Georgia Tech; if you look at Section C7 of the GT Common Data Set, you will see that academic GPA and academic rigor of your high school are “very important” admissions criteria whereas standardized test scores an an “important” consideration. And, while it is a small sample set, the OOS kids I know who recently have been admitted to GT have been class valedictorians or salutatorians.
Purdue has a “Data Digest” on its website which is interactive and which may be able to give you some idea of how you compare to other non-resident applicants to engineering in the past several admissions cycles. But it is not a “safety school” for you, as other posters have noted.
Every year some people go to Harvard, Stanford, UCB, MIT, or Cornell from my school. Not a lot of people ofc but maybe 20-30 to T20 schools. This is just a complete guess. I am a California Resident(have been living here for 10 years with like 1-2 months off in the summer ever 4 years to visit India). I have applied for permanent residency(like I have EAD but applying for SSN). Not really sure what this means but if someone could help me understand what this means, it would be really helpful. I will also certainly look into those colleges.
If your school is sending that many to top 20 schools, then you need to see your guidance counselor - because they’ll better know how you might fit in at a school where typically you’d need much stronger stats than yours to get in.
Thank you for your help.
I had a couple of questions. Would Purdue, TAMU, PSU, SCU, and VT be matches or reaches?
Also would colleges look at my application a bit more favorably since my horrible grades were in freshman year and I consistently improved over time.
I have not applied TAMU early but does applying to college early give you an advantage. I will try to get those other college u mentioned in early as well.
I have also submitted GTech, Penn State, SCU, and Purdue. I will definitely cut down on my list. My essay is on my Eagle Project but is not just like a brag list. I explained about the reason I chose the project(it was to help animals with this disease eat normally or they die). I also wrote about my thought process because my beneficiary wanted it to be more versatile so I have to innovate something that would be useful for most animals with that disease. I know its a bit vague but please let me know if this sounds bad.
@DadTwoGirls Thank you for your reply. If you have time please read my reply to @tsbna44 . I am really unsure about what my visa/citizenship status is right now and any help would be appreciated. Also for ASU, there was an option that said: “IA applied for permanent resident”. Does this describe my current status?
I will also remake my list to have more realistic matches and safeties.